


do you believe there’s still some magic left somewhere inside our souls?

by janie_tangerine



Series: but you and I, we've been through this maybe a hundred times before [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, First Kiss, Modern Westeros, Reincarnation, Robb Stark is a Gift, Romance, Soulmates, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, as much as you can with sandor being present anyway, yes this tag applies even if he's in this for ten seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 23:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Sandor and Sansa meet again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	do you believe there’s still some magic left somewhere inside our souls?

**Author's Note:**

> So I was taking prompts on tumblr and an anon asked for _would you ever write a new part to your 'but you and I, we've been through this maybe a hundred times before' where robb helps sansa meet sandor and they're soulmates?_. Fact is: I was kinda planning to have them being soulmates in this if I ever got there and I'm total sandor/sansa trash even if I never got around to write any so I figured hey why not, here we go, five years in this fandom and I just lost the v-card for the first thing I actually shipped in those books. Go me indeed.
> 
> Anyway, usual disclaimers: nothing belongs to me, I'm afraid this makes little sense if you haven't read the previous parts - sorry! - and the title is from the Gaslight Anthem ~~no one is surprised~~.

When Robb Stark gets out of that dorm house where he’s been living at for the last three or so years and comes straight his way just as he leaves the night club at the end of his shift, Sandor - well, he wasn’t expecting it. The kid hasn’t come looking for him specifically since he straightened his shit out, which is a good thing as far as Sandor’s concerned since he was definitely too young for the lifestyle he was leading.

Still, even if he hadn’t remembered - and Sandor does remember, even if he never voiced it to anyone - he knows he’d have given the kid his leftover whiskey. His face just was a picture of misery for the two years he had hanged around the place, and Sandor - Sandor _did_ remember him from Old Westeros just fine.

Back then, he was still fifteen or sixteen or whatever, and Sandor recalls that the one time they saw each other in the flesh he was smiling all the time, polite when the situation required it, looking after his siblings the way Gregor never could have in any lifetime, holding himself up like the proper lord he was supposed to become. There was a reason why he _had_ bought into that dumb fantasy he entertained for a short time of defecting to Robb Stark’s side. Oh, it was also because the little bird would swear left and right that her brother was honorable and just and fair and everything Joffrey Baratheon was not, but Sandor had seen the man. He had known she was right.

So, seeing the shitty hand the universe dealt him this time round, Sandor hadn’t even tried to be a better person in that sense. He has no moral higher ground - he didn’t have it in Old Westeros wither - and if Robb Stark only wanted to get drunk off his arse to forget how shitty his life was, well, Sandor could understand the feeling even too well. He _hasn’t_ gone so far down that path in this life, but he still - well, his face is still a mess of scarred tissue because Gregor hasn’t changed a bit and there was nothing to do about it, it’s not like he has this job because he _likes_ it and even if he didn’t join the army or become a raging alcoholic exactly because he remembered _everything_ the moment his fucking bastard of a brother (who at least went to jail for it, the twenty-first century be blessed) pushed his face against a burning stove back in the day, it’s not as if he’s been enjoying this ride much.

That said, at some point Robb Stark _had_ stopped trying to destroy his liver before its time was due. Sandor knows that he’s found his precious other half - good for him, Sandor has given up on it. On a certain level he’s sure that whoever it is, they’re better off with about anyone else - he can’t really offer much in the first place. But it definitely did Stark good - he says hi all the time and doesn’t ask for alcohol, hasn’t in months by now, and maybe lately he’s been looking somewhat like the person Sandor remembers, and it’s definitely not a bad thing.

And until now, he hadn’t come purposefully searching for him.

Sandor drops his backpack on the ground and waits.

“What do you want?” He asks when the kid stops in front of him. “I hope not any booze.”

“Uh, no,” Stark blurts out. “I’m - I’m done with that, I think.”

“Good, you’re way too young for that,” he huffs. “So, what do you want?”

“Do you remember?” Stark asks straight, and - wait.

“Do I remember _what_? Be a little more specific.”

“Old Westeros, Clegane. Let’s not dance around it, I’m asking for a reason.”

For a moment, Sandor is tempted to lie and send the kid on his way, but he has already waited too much. He looks at Stark and he knows that he understood.

Damn. It.

“Maybe I do,” he sighs. “And what is your reason, Stark? Because it’s late, I’m tired, the night shift is what it is and if you don’t need more alcohol then I don’t see how can I help you with anything.”

“It’s Snow, not Stark. Well, not yet, I guess. Actually, it wouldn’t - anyway, that’s not the point. I don’t need you to help me with anything, but I know someone else who might. Need you to help them, I mean.”

“You know -”

And that’s when understanding starts to maybe down on him.

“No,” he says, putting on his leather jacket quickly and grabbing the backpack again. “That’s out of the bloody question.”

Stark doesn’t seem that fazed - actually, he reaches out and grabs at his sleeve.

“I don’t think it is,” he says, calmly, and then -

Then someone comes up from behind the next corner over and Stark lets his sleeve go, and at this point there’d be no point in running because _she_ saw him, didn’t he?

“Try to be somewhat nicer, huh?” Stark says, and then smiles at him. “And by the way, if she’s right about - a few things she told me, I’d advise you to just go with it.”

“To go with _what_?”

“You know what I’m talking about. I’m telling you because I owe you for all the free whisky you gave me, I think it’s high time I try and pay you back. Don’t fuck it up,” he says, and then he _high fives his sister_ as he walks away.

And then Sansa Stark is in front of him once again.

The last time he saw her, it was - a whole fucking long time ago. She wore a long velvet dress with a direwolf sewn just above the waist, it was the same blue as her eyes, her hair was almost blindingly red in the pale winter light and it was in Castle Black’s training yard.

Now, her dress is still blue, even if it’s not elaborated at all. She’s wearing matching blue flats, it’s obvious that it’s a set. Her hair is neatly tied in a braid and it’s the same red, even if it doesn’t quite glimmer in the sunrise’s light, but then again they’re in the middle of a fairly shitty area of a fairly horrid city, not in the middle of the snow in an ancient castle. She’s a lot taller this time round, though not as much as he is.

And she’s _smiling_ , damn her.

“Sandor,” she says, and gods, her voice hasn’t changed at all.

“Little bird,” he rasps, and _damn_ but her grin gets a bit wider at that, and -

“I missed that,” she admits, her cheeks turning slightly red. Fuck, no.

“What are you even doing here?” He admits tiredly.

“If it wasn’t clear, I wanted to see you.”

“Now you saw me. And you should go back wherever your brother is now, instead of wasting your time -”

“Excuse me, I know I’m not wasting my time. And I think we have unfinished business, unless you don’t remember it. But I don’t think it’s the case. Is it?”

Damn her and the fact that he could never lie to her at any point in his previous life, not when it mattered, and looking at her determined blue eye staring straight into his he realizes he can’t do that either.

“I remember everything. And I’m failing to see what was the fucking unfinished business.”

She doesn’t seem too impressed with that answer, either. “You said you’d come back.”

“Well, it was _fighting the bloody Others_. I hoped I’d come back. Never said it was for sure.” He remembers that battle, even too much.

He remembers all the fire arrows that had flown during that battle and the left side of his face suddenly aches, even if there’s no reason for it.

Technically.

“Well, sworn shields usually should make only promises they intend to keep.”

He swallows. “I tried. And the important thing was that _you_ wouldn’t die.”

“I didn’t,” she agrees. “I lived a long time. And I still - I missed you all along. And I think -”

She reaches out with her hand, slowly - he notices that she has perfectly manicured fingers, all painted in sky blue - and he automatically takes a step back.

“Don’t,” he says, and it comes out barely audible and very angry and anyone else would have probably just ran away.

She doesn’t, though. “Why?”

“If - _if_ , if what your brother just told me before is right, then you shouldn’t. He’s wrong, but -”

“If you’re so sure he’s wrong then why wouldn’t you let me shake your hand?”

“If he wasn’t, then you should leave.”

“And I think I shouldn’t,” she replies, still not moving.

And the thing is - she’s staring up at him without even blinking. He knows that his burns are pretty much the same as they used to be, but she doesn’t seem fazed at all. She hadn’t been fazed when he met her again in the Vale, either, but she had been years before.

Now - 

Now she’s not.

“How old are you even?” He asks, wishing he could get away without her reaching out and possibly grabbing his jacket - she could, at this distance.

“Nineteen in a few months,” she replies calmly.

“Fuck,” he sighs, “you really need to leave.”

“I can vote, I can drive and I can drink,” she replies, still sounding unnervingly calm about it. “And how old are _you_?”

He shrugs. “Thirty in six months. Still too damn old for you. Especially in this century.”

“So what, I can’t decide for myself?” She almost sounds amused, and gods but she’s everything he had thought she might have turned out to be back in the day if she hadn’t been stuck in that nest of vipers that was fucking King’s Landing.

“You’d just be a lot better off with someone who can offer you something, little bird,” he sighs, and gods, she perks up again. What’s wrong with her? “I have a crappy job, a crappy apartment, a dog who’s better company than me on most days and I talk to my sister once each month. Not a great prospect.”

“You know,” she says, slowly, “I thought you kissed me during - Blackwater.”

For a moment, he has absolutely nothing to say. “I _didn’t_!” He protests as soon as he can find his footing. “Fuck, I - I’m not proud about that night, in retrospective, but I didn’t - I wouldn’t have -”

“I know that,” she interrupts him, raising a hand upwards. “I know now. When I remembered everything, it was all pretty clear. But back in Old Westeros - I didn’t really know better. I was sure you kissed me.”

“Little bird -”

“And I _liked_ it.”

“You - you did _what_?”

“I thought about that kiss. I thought it was my first. I compared all the ones I received later to it. They somehow paled.”

“Sansa -”

“And I was planning on asking you to do it again, after you came back. But then you didn’t.”

Damn it. Damn it all, and fuck sideways the fact that she can still get under his skin that easily.

Not that it’d be a surprise, if she’s -

If _she_ ’s -

“And is it what you’re asking now?” He finally blurts out. “Because you deserve better. And I hope that it wouldn’t be your first. You’re nineteen, fuck’s sake -”

“I remembered when I was thirteen, I hadn’t kissed anyone back then and I decided that since in Old Westeros I had expectations about it, maybe I wanted to wait for my soulmate to come along.”

“You had _expectations_.”

“I wanted it to be everything you could find in a song,” she admits, her cheeks reddening slightly again. Then she takes a step forward. “The actual first really wasn’t. Everything else - well, nothing quite felt like the one that never happened.”

“I see that you haven’t changed at all, have you?” And gods, he can hear how fond he sounds, but what should he even do? He just can’t sound in any other way. Not when she still hasn’t run away and she seems so convinced, and the thing is -

Back in the day, he hadn’t thought he was even worth of being her darned _sworn shield_ , which lasted for a whole of their trip from the Vale to the North up until he went and died fighting white walkers beyond the Wall. The fact that she’s so sure that they are in fact soulmates and that she wants to act on it after all this time is just making him dizzy, and it’s unfair that she caught him at the end of a twelve-hour shift.

“I like to know I kept my best qualities.” She winks, damn her, and takes a last step forward. She doesn’t touch. “But we could make a deal.”

“I’m listening.”

“You said you’d have a song from me, back in the day. You had it.”

“And it was more than I ever hoped I could get,” he admits. “I did.”

“Case is, I think I’d like to have that kiss from you, if you’d be so gallant.”

“I never was famous for that.”

“You were more of a true knight than most. Possibly than anyone I’ve met.”

“I wasn’t -”

“You _were_. So, you could give me that kiss. If you’re right and we’re _not_ , then you’ll have given me closure and we can go on our separate ways. If _I_ am right - well, I guess we shall see. What do you say?”

“I’ll say that you play fucking dirty. Very well,” he sighs, “you’ll have your kiss. It’s only fair, I guess.”

Thing is - he’s tempted to touch her arm as he moves forward, but something is telling him that what she’s hoping for is that the first time they touch it should be their mouths, not their hands, and it’s such a bloody fucking _romantic_ notion that sounds exactly like her that he just - he doesn’t know if he should overthink it.

Good thing that in this twenty-first century she’s slightly taller than she was in Westeros. He doesn’t have to lean down that much in order to reach her.

Then -

“Are you sure you want this to be in front of a bloody night-club and not somewhere more fucking refined?”

“I don’t care,” she replies, and her voice sounds like steel.

Sandor thinks that there’s a limit to how much he can stands before just _doing it_ , but -

He doesn’t know what kind of kiss she imagined he’d give her. Maybe some brutal kind of kiss, because what should she have assumed? Surely not gentle or gallant or anything worthy of a song.

Sandor isn’t sure he can even try to give her a kiss _worthy of a song_ but if it’s the only chance he has, then he sure as hell might try. He closes the distance between them, his mouth touching her as gently as he can, and he hopes the scar tissue doesn’t freak her out -

And the moment he kisses her, he feels it.

First there’s something like a shock going through his spine - he feels as if his body has gone on fire for a few seconds, and then it’s warm everywhere and he’s _hearing her_ but she can’t be talking, not when her mouth is on his -

 _It’s him it’s him it’s_ him _I knew that yes yes yes yes_

And gods is that what she’s thinking, and he can feel how she’s feeling and she’s _happy_ , fuck’s sake, and he doesn’t know how she can be when she pretty much just ended up saddled with the likes of him, but -

Fuck that.

He brings his hand up at the back of her head, cupping it under the braid, moves his other arm around his waist and lifts her up so that he can kiss her proper, damn it to the seven hells. She lets out a small whimper inside his mouth but then her hands go on the sides of his face at once - the burned one as well, a lot less tentatively than she had touched it in Blackwater - and she’s parting her lips and kissing him back almost ferociously.

That’s absolutely not a thing Sandor has a problem with. He holds her close and waits for the moment her tongue finds his, and seven hells but _he_ ’s definitely not giving her any kind of kiss. _She_ ’s taking it the way he took that song in another lifetime and -

And if you ask him, he’s entirely fine with this. So he kisses her back, relieving the warmth surrounding him and coming straight from her palms that are still cupping his face, and when the kiss breaks because the two of them are breathing heavily and in dire need of air, her braid is ruined, her hair is falling all over her shoulders, he’s still lifting her up so that they’re at eye level and she looks positively radiant.

“Was that the fucking song-worthy kiss you wanted, little bird?” He breathes out, and he can hear the fast but steady beat of her heart against his, and he can feel what she’s feeling and she’s elated and shit, she probably can feel the same coming from him and he never thought he’d get to have _this_ and with her out of everyone, but -

“It was better,” she cuts him, “and I think I want another.”

“You sound sure that I won’t say no,” he says, and shivers when her thumb runs over the scarred side of his face.

“I _know_ you won’t. I was right, wasn’t I?”

He knows she is, same as he knows she means it wholly and entirely without needing to ask her.

“I have a bike parked over there,” he says, nodding towards it. “Maybe if you want another we should just go to my place instead of doing it here. Not that it’s a palace or anything but if this is how things are, I guess I should take my duties seriously.”

“Put it like this, I can wait.”

Not long later, she’ll sit behind him and she’ll wrap her arms around his waist and he’ll drive very slowly because he didn’t have an extra helmet and gave her his own, and her hands will feel like a furnace against his stomach, and he’ll wonder what did he even do right to deserve having her in his life again.

Now -

Now he doesn’t even try to pretend that his eyes aren’t burning the same way they did in Blackwater, and when her palm catches a few stray tears it’s just that and not blood as well, and he thinks he knows what her brother meant when he said to go with it and to not fuck it up.

A part of him is saying that it’s bound to happen.

Another one is saying that for once he should just follow the fucking advice and go with it.

Then he sees her shivering for a moment - well, it’s a chilly morning. He thinks about it for a moment, then he shrugs off his jacket and lays it down on her shoulders.

“Oh,” she says, pulling her arms inside the sleeves and wrapping it around her frame - she’s swimming in it, but he thinks he likes the sight - “you know, I kept your cloak.”

“My - the white one?”

“In a chest under the bed. Sometimes I took it out,” she admits, her hand finding his own.

And - there’s something swelling in his chest that he’s not sure he wants to name right now, and so he leans down and kisses her again, her long, smooth fingers tangling in his hair same as his own are grasping at hers, and he dares hope that this time round is the one where they get it right.

 

End.


End file.
